Mossbourne Academy achieves results because of good systems and structures, and staff who make no excuses for failure. Photo: Dan Chung for the Guardian

Those who took part in the riots last August were overwhelmingly young and from disadvantaged backgrounds. Half of those who appeared in court were under 21, and three times more likely to be entitled to free meals when they were at school.

The sad truth is that these are the very young people most likely to attend a weak school and receive a substandard education. This is not acceptable any more. If we don't give more of our young people a good education, then more will end up in jail, and more communities will fracture. If we don't give our young people the skills they need for employment, their communities can't thrive.

Let's be honest. We don't have a good enough schools system yet. Almost a third of the schools in England were not judged to be good by Ofsted at their last inspection. Three thousand schools, educating a million children, were judged "satisfactory" at both their last two inspections. Previous chief inspectors have identified the same problem of too much stubbornly satisfactory, mediocre provision, yet we haven't made enough progress.

So what about some solutions? We need to do something different, which is brave and radical. That's why I have made clear my intention to do away with the false label of "satisfactory" and replace it with a clear statement that a school "requires improvement". There will be greater clarity about what the school needs to do to improve, and faster re-inspection to check on progress. I want to set a clear expectation that a school requiring improvement will do so rapidly, or find itself in special measures.

We know it can be done in the most difficult circumstances. My former school, Mossbourne Academy, has four in 10 children on free school meals; 30% on the special educational needs register; and 38% of children with English as a second language. It now achieves results much better than the national average and sends pupils to Oxbridge – not because of a bright new building, but because of good systems and structures, good teaching, and staff who work hard and make no excuses for failure. The school often acts as a surrogate parent, providing wraparound care, enrichment and support for pupils who don't get enough of this at home. And I'm proud to say no pupil at Mossbourne, as far as I am aware, was caught up in last summer's problems.

Of course, there are many schools like Mossbourne. But they all share some crucial features: a rigorous approach to improving the quality of teaching, and a relentlessness in the pursuit of improvement. They have leaders who drive up the performance of staff. They make no excuses, and they have high expectations of every single pupil. So shouldn't we have high expectations of every single school? We know what works, for schools as well as pupils.

Last year alone 85 schools serving the most deprived communities in our society were judged to be providing outstanding education. If they can do it in these challenging circumstances there is absolutely no reason why other schools in more prosperous areas cannot. And before someone writes in to argue that supposedly "it's all very well if you have the extra focus or resources of academy status", let me be clear: the vast majority of these schools are not academies. They are simply schools with heads and staff focused on the right things, striving every day to provide the best possible education for their young people.

This is not about being provocative: it's about doing the right thing for pupils. Every time heads and others make excuses for failure, it makes it harder to sustain the drive for improvement in the most challenging schools. Every time a substandard teacher is left unchallenged, the most vulnerable pupils have their life chances diminished.

Teaching and headship is now a much better paid profession that needs to remind itself of its core mission and sense of moral purpose. Unless we have this sense of vocation – a word we don't hear enough of these days – we won't drive up standards in the most difficult circumstances.

I'm really clear about my mission as chief inspector. I'm also aware that some of what we need to do to transform our education system will be uncomfortable. So be it: we need a step change. The prize is a significantly better education system: one that gives more young people the start they need and deserve, and ultimately creates stronger communities for all of us.